How long do iPhones last before they generally start to slow down or become obsolete due to operating system updates?

I've never had a problem using them 2-3 years, but I would expect once you get to year 4-5 things start to get long in the tooth (don't keep my phones that long, so I don't know).

My first iPhone was an iPhone 3G got it around 2009. It slowed down considerably so I upgraded to my current phone.

My current iPhone was an iPhone 6 got it around 2015. It's working fine no slowing down while I'm using iOS 11 beta. Battery can still hold 2 days. I think Apple did a good job with the iPhone 6 and I don't think it'll be obsolete for another 2-3 years.

Wife just got a 6S today, hope it lasts atleast 2 years.

"Squirrels figured out how to save eons ago. They buried acorns. Some, they dug up, for food. Others, they let to sprout, in new oak trees. We could learn from squirrels." -john94549

It is all relative. My cell plan costs $7.50 a month and some people pay $80 a month. I could buy an Iphone X and still be paying less.

At the end of the day the real decision is whether picking an X over an iphone SE, 6S or 7 (or +) is worth it. You get a phone that is 90-95% of what the X is at a fraction of the cost. And yet still have the headphone jack for the earlier ones and touchid etc. These days the older models can still work really well. No real need for an upgrade. Plus who really wants to limit themselves to just faceID or a passcode to unlock. People will still buy it though. Must have the latest.

It is all relative. My cell plan costs $7.50 a month and some people pay $80 a month. I could buy an Iphone X and still be paying less.

At the end of the day the real decision is whether picking an X over an iphone SE, 6S or 7 (or +) is worth it. You get a phone that is 90-95% of what the X is at a fraction of the cost. And yet still have the headphone jack for the earlier ones and touchid etc. These days the older models can still work really well. No real need for an upgrade. Plus who really wants to limit themselves to just faceID or a passcode to unlock. People will still buy it though. Must have the latest.

How long do iPhones last before they generally start to slow down or become obsolete due to operating system updates?

I've never had a problem using them 2-3 years, but I would expect once you get to year 4-5 things start to get long in the tooth (don't keep my phones that long, so I don't know).

My first iPhone was an iPhone 3G got it around 2009. It slowed down considerably so I upgraded to my current phone.

My current iPhone was an iPhone 6 got it around 2015. It's working fine no slowing down while I'm using iOS 11 beta. Battery can still hold 2 days. I think Apple did a good job with the iPhone 6 and I don't think it'll be obsolete for another 2-3 years.

Wife just got a 6S today, hope it lasts atleast 2 years.

That's a good phone. It's what I have and it is still going strong after 2+ years. No need for me to upgrade until this one gives up the ghost.

"Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time." ~ Steven Wright

So if apple won't enable the chip then whats the use? I"d be a really upset consumer if I got the intel chip and apple decided to open up the qualcomm chip.

I disagree that it matters only to spec geeks. It matters to anyone on a network. Less congestion due to a bigger pipe benefits everyone.

Nobody noticed from 50 to 100 because collectively you weren't bogging down the 50mb connection. Have them all start to stream march madness at the same time or have someone start downloading a TB file from a server/machine at 50 MB then switch to 100mb. I guarantee they would notice. Try to run a corp network at 10GB/sec but have everyone connect at 100mb/sec and see what happens.

And the reason that we aren't bogging down the network is because the Internet as it stands today doesn't demand connection speeds faster than around 20Mbps for 99% of what most users do. The web servers can't typically provide data faster than that and video streaming doesn't demand that much bandwidth. Yes, of course if one part of the equation is over capacity everyone will suffer - but that's the point I'm making - the current tight points in capacity are much further upstream than in the end users handset. Increasing the theoretical capacity of your handset from the current ~450Mbps to 1Gbps makes no difference if the bottleneck further upstream limits you to 20Mbps.

Read up on 256 QAM and it's benefits to gigabit LTE. we are getting a bigger pipe that can handle more data at higher speeds. Your thinking about this from a single or a few end points. Like I said have your entire office start streaming 1080p content or have someone start downloading a TB file and see what happens to your connection. Every user doesn't get 50mb the whole connection gets 50mb. So is you get 12 to 14 people streaming at 4mb you clog the thing up and everyone suffers. Have someone push a TB file up and gets way worse. Why do think we have 10gb switches in servers and such? Throughput.

If this was no big deal then why would the carriers be investing aggressively to implement it?

I stand by my claim that gigabit LTE is a game changer and apple should have had it in their phones.

Last edited by wfrobinette on Sat Sep 16, 2017 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've tried them and they just aren't good enough for me. To each his own.

How did you survive 15 years ago when we were all carrying flip phones?

How did we survive before Google or the internet or the interstate highway system or flight or the combustion engine or antibiotics or seatbelts. Of course people did but each invention has made life easier. Or maybe you want a to carry a flip phone, palm pilot, G-Shock watch, Ti Calculator and Sony Walkman around while driving to your broker to place a trade for $80?

IMHO, Investing should be about living the life you want, not avoiding the life you fear. |
Run, You Clever Boy! [9085]

There's a sociology lesson here in that very few people can go, "My phone is good, your phone that is kinda different is also good, we both can have nice things and they're not the same nice thing".

Exactly.

I've got an iPhone 5. Apparently I'm left out for iOS 11, which I'm actually looking forward to. We'll be spending the next couple months in my house deciding whether I get the SE, the (much more expensive) 8, or the (now cheaper, but marginally more expensive) 7. I have no appetite for the X. I have TouchID on the iPad and I LOVE it. All three above choices have it, but I'm intrigued by wireless charging.

I like cyclingduo's breakout of cost per day for the phone in one year. With AppleCare and case, an 8 comes out to $3.04. A 7 now comes out to $2.44/day. Since I obviously keep phones longer than one year, my daily cost goes down by 50% at least. I spend about $1.05/day on AT&T's DirectTV NOW, $4 on electricity, $2-$3 on water, and way more on transportation. Although I can't say I would give up my car before my iPhone (like another poster), it is certainly a very useful piece of technology in my life.

Nice!

I can speak for the SE. It is a really nice little smartphone. I made the move from a Galaxy S5 that I liked. Not unlike a person who has always been a Toyota person and just wanted "something different" and bought a Honda, I made the move to iPhone simply because I wanted a change in my life. It hasn't disappointed at all, and I recommend to anyone.

How long do iPhones last before they generally start to slow down or become obsolete due to operating system updates?

I've never had a problem using them 2-3 years, but I would expect once you get to year 4-5 things start to get long in the tooth (don't keep my phones that long, so I don't know).

My first iPhone was an iPhone 3G got it around 2009. It slowed down considerably so I upgraded to my current phone.

My current iPhone was an iPhone 6 got it around 2015. It's working fine no slowing down while I'm using iOS 11 beta. Battery can still hold 2 days. I think Apple did a good job with the iPhone 6 and I don't think it'll be obsolete for another 2-3 years.

Wife just got a 6S today, hope it lasts atleast 2 years.

That's a good phone. It's what I have and it is still going strong after 2+ years. No need for me to upgrade until this one gives up the ghost.

That isn't the case for heavy users, their batteries are are really suffering by this point. That is the main reason most people I know are buying new phones. Personally, I can't ever remember being disappointed in any new phone I bought. FWIW, the old Motorola flip phones were cool.

IMHO, Investing should be about living the life you want, not avoiding the life you fear. |
Run, You Clever Boy! [9085]

I've never had a problem using them 2-3 years, but I would expect once you get to year 4-5 things start to get long in the tooth (don't keep my phones that long, so I don't know).

My first iPhone was an iPhone 3G got it around 2009. It slowed down considerably so I upgraded to my current phone.

My current iPhone was an iPhone 6 got it around 2015. It's working fine no slowing down while I'm using iOS 11 beta. Battery can still hold 2 days. I think Apple did a good job with the iPhone 6 and I don't think it'll be obsolete for another 2-3 years.

Wife just got a 6S today, hope it lasts atleast 2 years.

That's a good phone. It's what I have and it is still going strong after 2+ years. No need for me to upgrade until this one gives up the ghost.

That isn't the case for heavy users, their batteries are are really suffering by this point. That is the main reason most people I know are buying new phones. Personally, I can't ever remember being disappointed in any new phone I bought. FWIW, the old Motorola flip phones were cool.

My first iPhone was an iPhone 3G got it around 2009. It slowed down considerably so I upgraded to my current phone.

My current iPhone was an iPhone 6 got it around 2015. It's working fine no slowing down while I'm using iOS 11 beta. Battery can still hold 2 days. I think Apple did a good job with the iPhone 6 and I don't think it'll be obsolete for another 2-3 years.

Wife just got a 6S today, hope it lasts atleast 2 years.

That's a good phone. It's what I have and it is still going strong after 2+ years. No need for me to upgrade until this one gives up the ghost.

That isn't the case for heavy users, their batteries are are really suffering by this point. That is the main reason most people I know are buying new phones. Personally, I can't ever remember being disappointed in any new phone I bought. FWIW, the old Motorola flip phones were cool.

Because I want a shiny new phone and take the battery wearing out as a sign it is time? Besides my phone is worth north of $200 in trade so add in the repair cost for a new battery and the new iPhone doesn't seem as expensive.

IMHO, Investing should be about living the life you want, not avoiding the life you fear. |
Run, You Clever Boy! [9085]

You can't get it unlocked for $150; you can get it for $105 from SimpleMobile (TMobile), $140 for an AT&T Network, and $200 (maybe less?) for a Verizon network.
After a year, you can unlock it if it really matters to you.

Correct. If that matters to you and you don't want to get one of those $1.50/month plan and leave it for 6 months (or just use it on the network it is intended for), then it's probably not a good deal for you.
For my mother-in-law and friends I told about this, it's a steal.

Read up on 256 QAM and it's benefits to gigabit LTE. we are getting a bigger pipe that can handle more data at higher speeds. Your thinking about this from a single or a few end points. Like I said have your entire office start streaming 1080p content or have someone start downloading a TB file and see what happens to your connection. Every user doesn't get 50mb the whole connection gets 50mb. So is you get 12 to 14 people streaming at 4mb you clog the thing up and everyone suffers. Have someone push a TB file up and gets way worse. Why do think we have 10gb switches in servers and such? Throughput.

If this was no big deal then why would the carriers be investing aggressively to implement it?

I stand by my claim that gigabit LTE is a game changer and apple should have had it in their phones.

You're right about what would happen at our office - we have a single 50Mbps pipe and any given device in the building is capable of at least 100Mbps, with most of them wired in to our Gigabit network. That's why the experience of using the Internet at our workplace is no different whether you are on a laptop with moderate wifi signal or on a workstation with dual-wired gigabit. The bottleneck is the network coming in to the office, not the individual device.

This is exactly the same situation with the wireless carriers. The choke point is how much bandwidth each tower can distribute. Current modern handsets are capable of up to a theoretical ~450Mbps, but the towers don't generally provide more than about 20Mbps to any individual device. So if user A has an iPhone with a chip capable of '450Mbps' and user B has a Galaxy S9 capable of '1Gbps' their experience is going to be fundamentally the same when the towers are only feeding them 20Mbps, or 40Mbps, or 80 or whatever -(exactly the same as in our office where a computer with a 100Mbps connection is at no disadvantage for the 50Mbps Internet connection as compared to one on Gigabit.) Yes, at some point in the future gigabit will be important, but we aren't going to go from 20Mbps real-world speeds today to 800Mbps real-world in a few months. It's going to take years.

Read up on 256 QAM and it's benefits to gigabit LTE. we are getting a bigger pipe that can handle more data at higher speeds. Your thinking about this from a single or a few end points. Like I said have your entire office start streaming 1080p content or have someone start downloading a TB file and see what happens to your connection. Every user doesn't get 50mb the whole connection gets 50mb. So is you get 12 to 14 people streaming at 4mb you clog the thing up and everyone suffers. Have someone push a TB file up and gets way worse. Why do think we have 10gb switches in servers and such? Throughput.

If this was no big deal then why would the carriers be investing aggressively to implement it?

I stand by my claim that gigabit LTE is a game changer and apple should have had it in their phones.

You're right about what would happen at our office - we have a single 50Mbps pipe and any given device in the building is capable of at least 100Mbps, with most of them wired in to our Gigabit network. That's why the experience of using the Internet at our workplace is no different whether you are on a laptop with moderate wifi signal or on a workstation with dual-wired gigabit. The bottleneck is the network coming in to the office, not the individual device.

This is exactly the same situation with the wireless carriers. The choke point is how much bandwidth each tower can distribute. Current modern handsets are capable of up to a theoretical ~450Mbps, but the towers don't generally provide more than about 20Mbps to any individual device. So if user A has an iPhone with a chip capable of '450Mbps' and user B has a Galaxy S9 capable of '1Gbps' their experience is going to be fundamentally the same when the towers are only feeding them 20Mbps, or 40Mbps, or 80 or whatever -(exactly the same as in our office where a computer with a 100Mbps connection is at no disadvantage for the 50Mbps Internet connection as compared to one on Gigabit.) Yes, at some point in the future gigabit will be important, but we aren't going to go from 20Mbps real-world speeds today to 800Mbps real-world in a few months. It's going to take years.

Gigabit LTE is going to give the carriers a bigger pipe to work with. (more bandwidth) The gigabit standard that all carriers are moving to now is going to allow them to give more than 20Mb per device or the tower will be able to handle many more devices at the same speed. I agree that it's going to take years to get to 800Mbps for all. However, if we can go from 20 to 40 or 80 Mbps while at the same time increasing bandwidth for all it's a huge win.

Have you read this? it explains it in detail and also shows that even on a regular LTE network the gigbit LTE chip/moden with 4 antennas vs 2 out performs what Apple is putting in their phone.

To take advantage of that you are going to need a chip and modem that supports the standard. That Iphone with its 450Mbps chip can't benefit because it is incapable of receiving a gigabit LTE signal. By 2018 nearly all metro areas will have this technology enabled. Unless you're trading in a phone every 18 to 24 months it makes this cycle of Apple phones less than desirable. I'm due and am not spending $1000 on something that is clearly behind their competitors.

Read up on 256 QAM and it's benefits to gigabit LTE. we are getting a bigger pipe that can handle more data at higher speeds. Your thinking about this from a single or a few end points. Like I said have your entire office start streaming 1080p content or have someone start downloading a TB file and see what happens to your connection. Every user doesn't get 50mb the whole connection gets 50mb. So is you get 12 to 14 people streaming at 4mb you clog the thing up and everyone suffers. Have someone push a TB file up and gets way worse. Why do think we have 10gb switches in servers and such? Throughput.

If this was no big deal then why would the carriers be investing aggressively to implement it?

I stand by my claim that gigabit LTE is a game changer and apple should have had it in their phones.

You're right about what would happen at our office - we have a single 50Mbps pipe and any given device in the building is capable of at least 100Mbps, with most of them wired in to our Gigabit network. That's why the experience of using the Internet at our workplace is no different whether you are on a laptop with moderate wifi signal or on a workstation with dual-wired gigabit. The bottleneck is the network coming in to the office, not the individual device.

This is exactly the same situation with the wireless carriers. The choke point is how much bandwidth each tower can distribute. Current modern handsets are capable of up to a theoretical ~450Mbps, but the towers don't generally provide more than about 20Mbps to any individual device. So if user A has an iPhone with a chip capable of '450Mbps' and user B has a Galaxy S9 capable of '1Gbps' their experience is going to be fundamentally the same when the towers are only feeding them 20Mbps, or 40Mbps, or 80 or whatever -(exactly the same as in our office where a computer with a 100Mbps connection is at no disadvantage for the 50Mbps Internet connection as compared to one on Gigabit.) Yes, at some point in the future gigabit will be important, but we aren't going to go from 20Mbps real-world speeds today to 800Mbps real-world in a few months. It's going to take years.

Gigabit LTE is going to give the carriers a bigger pipe to work with. (more bandwidth) The gigabit standard that all carriers are moving to now is going to allow them to give more than 20Mb per device or the tower will be able to handle many more devices at the same speed. I agree that it's going to take years to get to 800Mbps for all. However, if we can go from 20 to 40 or 80 Mbps while at the same time increasing bandwidth for all it's a huge win.

Have you read this? it explains it in detail and also shows that even on a regular LTE network the gigbit LTE chip/moden with 4 antennas vs 2 out performs what Apple is putting in their phone.

To take advantage of that you are going to need a chip and modem that supports the standard. That Iphone with its 450Mbps chip can't benefit because it is incapable of receiving a gigabit LTE signal. By 2018 nearly all metro areas will have this technology enabled. Unless you're trading in a phone every 18 to 24 months it makes this cycle of Apple phones less than desirable. I'm due and am not spending $1000 on something that is clearly behind their competitors.

I would think it will take many years for 90+% of cell phone users to even notice. It's not like the huge step of going from a flip phone to a smart phone.

Because Apple tends to drop old technology before anyone else. And the 3.5 mm headphone jack is old technology (70s? 60s?). The trend is to move towards wireless so Apple expects you to use Bluetooth headphones, or use their lightning connector (which they provide the adapter with the phone).

Apple also dropped the 3.5" floppy before anyone else and they also dropped the CD rom drive before anyone else.

A Corolla is $15k before rebates, if you invest the difference in a 60-40 market portfolio, the returns would cover the fuel costs for next decade for a car that will run long after end of life of Model 3 batteries, not to mention Corolla has superior range over Model 3.
My 5 year-old iPhone 5 runs as new except for short battery life.
Be it smart phone or eletric car, battery lifespan is about half of internal combustion engine and transmission.

A Corolla is $15k before rebates, if you invest the difference in a 60-40 market portfolio, the returns would cover the fuel costs for next decade for a car that will run long after end of life of Model 3 batteries.
My 5 year-old iPhone 5 runs as new except for short battery life.

I have sufficient funds to cover the difference. I can afford a few iPhone X, or the difference between a Corolla and the Model 3. I expect I will be happier driving the Model 3 than the Corrola. My airplane isn't prudent from a cost perspective, but there are so many tangible and intangible advantages that I don't think I'll stop flying just to save the $10k/year it costs me to operate.

I would not want to put up with any phone if I had to live with a short battery life. If my Samsung Galaxy Express ever starts to suffer from a shortened battery life, I'll just pop in a new battery.

I have sufficient funds to cover the difference. I can afford a few iPhone X, or the difference between a Corolla and the Model 3. I expect I will be happier driving the Model 3 than the Corrola. My airplane isn't prudent from a cost perspective, but there are so many tangible and intangible advantages that I don't think I'll stop flying just to save the $10k/year it costs me to operate.

It's good to know the price of things, but even better to know their value.

Okay, I get it; I won't be political or controversial. The Earth is flat.

Because the capability to support 600MHz is hardware based, the new iPhones will not be able to get support later on through a software upgrade.

Currently T-Mobile is adding the 600Mhz spectrum to areas where they have the least coverage. It would be nice in their current coverage areas for better building coverage. It probably wouldn't have helped me five years ago in the convention area under the Chicago Hyatt Regency 40 feet below street level.

Thanks for the link. I currently have AT&T but am thinking about switching to T-Mobile. According to this video that was linked in the article, it looks like they aren't rolling out 600 mhz to my area until 2020 anyway. By then, I will have upgraded my iPhone X to the iPhone...X3?

I think we are very close to a time that is analogous to when people stopped buying new PCs every 2-3 years because PCs were getting so much faster and more powerful on a yearly basis. Basically the same situation has existed for cell phones over the last 12-15 years - phones were improving in speed, features and capabilities so fast that many folks felt justified in getting new phones every year or every other year at most. We have now reach the point where yearly cell phone improvements are incremental at best. More people likely feel that there are way better places to spend their money than on a yearly new cell phone. There is still plenty of room for growth for this technology especially in emerging economies. But my guess is that Apple's ability to churn the user base for huge revenue every year with latest phone is pretty much over.

Can I ask why ppl are so obsessed wth IPhone?"! I don't get it! It is a nice phone, with good specs etc etc...but to be hyped by the presentation of it and lining up on the stores even if it's $1000....don't get it!

Can I ask why ppl are so obsessed wth IPhone?"! I don't get it! It is a nice phone, with good specs etc etc...but to be hyped by the presentation of it and lining up on the stores even if it's $1000....don't get it!

I don't care for the iPhone X, but I prefer iOS over Android any day (I have an iPhone SE which is a dated design with updated internals). iOS is also more secure IMO and the app store is better managed. Also integrates better with macOS.

So I go with iPhone for iOS. If iOS were available on non-iPhones I might have considered them.

Can I ask why ppl are so obsessed wth IPhone?"! I don't get it! It is a nice phone, with good specs etc etc...but to be hyped by the presentation of it and lining up on the stores even if it's $1000....don't get it!

I don't care for the iPhone X, but I prefer iOS over Android any day (I have an iPhone SE which is a dated design with updated internals). iOS is also more secure IMO and the app store is better managed. Also integrates better with macOS.

So I go with iPhone for iOS. If iOS were available on non-iPhones I might have considered them.

I understand the concern with the OS. I used to have a MacBook and I agree with the better performing of the OS and the machine in general.
The point for me is that the brand is becoming more expensive than the performance and the results. And Apple to me is loosing the professional touch they used to have.

I understand the concern with the OS. I used to have a MacBook and I agree with the better performing of the OS and the machine in general.
The point for me is that the brand is becoming more expensive than the performance and the results. And Apple to me is loosing the professional touch they used to have.

I think they are still better than the competition. For me, it's worth the premium, but I can see it may not be for everybody. If I was struggling with my finances, for example, I would be priced out and would live with the cheaper alternative. Right now, I view it as a luxury expense which brings me a lot of joy. I know many people who made the switch to Android/Windows and came right back.

Sorry Apple, I won't give a dime to your company as usual Technologically challenged device at a premium price to ripoff your most gullible customers don't work to me. It's a mediocore phone sold at a luxury price to naive buyers.